


The Train Job

by Nomette



Series: All Roads Lead To The Capital [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nomette/pseuds/Nomette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Prussia plotted to expose Germany's stepford-smiling italian sweetheart as a member of the mafia, he didn't reckon with Romano's smile, Feliciano's cunning, Spain's axe, Rome's old sheds, Germany's faithfulness, Poland's advice or that dreadful beast, romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Train Job

           “Jesus fucking Christ,“ muttered Romano and crossed himself guiltily before tossing his last cigarette to the ground and grinding it under his heel. He’d been cursing his brother under his breath for the last fifteen minutes in the same mindless tone he used to recite the rosary and with the same devotion and approximate level of thought. There was really no reason why he should have to be at this train station waiting for Germany when Feliciano could have done it just as well. As well as Feliciano did anything. Which wasn’t very well.  Romano ground his teeth and reached for another cigarette just as a loud honk announced the arrival of the train.

           ‘It’s about time,’ he thought. ‘Just get your fuck self out of that train so that I can get this over with and get something to eat sometime before the end of the century.” Romano hadn’t wanted to give the contract for his new subway line to anyone else, least of all Germany, but Veniziano had pleased and cajoled and hinted and in the end Romano had relented. The train door opened; Romano had already opened his mouth to inform Germany that he would be docking his pay for being late when he noticed that something was off. There was no careful clunk of leather boots, no blond head of disgusting slicked-back hair.  Instead, there was a commotion as a white-haired figure half-staggered, half-fell down the subway stairs.

             Romano groaned.  The potato-bastard couldn’t even bother to come personally; he was sending his idiot brother instead.  The one who’d hung out with Russia for half a century and still wasn’t doing any work.  But Prussia it was, wearing a slightly sleep-wrinkled suit and carrying a suitcase that looked like it was about to explode at the seams. An empty beer bottle was tucked under each of his lanky arms, which might have explained the staggering.  Romano clenched his teeth. 

            “Hey there, shorty!” Prussia called to Romano, oblivious to Romano’s growing anger. “The awesome me has arrived to grace your country and provide it with the world’s best railroad!”

            So many thoughts jostled to get out of Romano’s mouth that they got stuck in his throat and only a high pitched squeal, like the steam from a teakettle, was able to escape. Prussia didn’t even notice.  “So, where do you want this U-bahn line anyways,” Prussia asked, squinting down at Romano’s face and trying to remember which curl went with which Italy. “Prussian engineering is the best, so I’ll understand if afterwards you’re so impressed you want us to replace your entire system, but for now all you get is one line.”

            “F-fuck you.” said Romano. “I’m not short! You’re just too long and thin, like badly made pasta. It’s not a goddamn u-Bahn-this is Italy, we call it a fucking Metro like civilized people, you dumb shit. A-and I didn’t hire you to make it, fool, I hired your stupid macho-head brother and, and-“

            “And you’re amazingly thankful to have me here, I know.”

            “Fuck you!”

            “Bros before hos, man. I understand that you can’t wait to get your hands on me but, uh, you ain’t worth hashing it out with Spain. This is strictly business. Did you want to get some work done, or are you just going to keep hitting on me?”

            Prussia was clearly insane. “Do you even know how to do anything other than drink?”

            “You just tell me where you want the line, shorty, and I’ll take care of the rest.” said Prussia, pulling a beaten up piece of graph paper out of his back pocket. “Depending on where you want the line, we’ll have to bring in different machinery, so we’ve got to establish the terrain type and finish drawing up the plans now, or at least before we start to import. Still, if we can get the surveying work finished this week, you should still be able to get the excavation done before next year’s tourist season.”

            “You’re fucking insane,” stated Romano, just to get that bit out of the way first. He felt it was important. “No one can build that fast. Even Germany,“ Romano added grudgingly, “told me it would take longer than that.”

            “Germany is, of course, an excellent engineer, since he was trained by yours truly, but he’s got no ambition. He’s too careful,“ Prussia said, waving the piece of paper around like it meant something. “Also, he’s not me.”

            A vein in Romano’s forehead pulsed. If he had been a human, he would have been long dead of high blood pressure; as it was, Rome was full of traffic jams. “You are such a dumbass! Listen, if you can finish the excavation by then, I will give you one of my paintingsto use as wallpaper for your tiny protestant hut up north. If Germany can’t do it, there is no way that a washed out loser like you can.”

“You’re on, small aggressive Italy,” Prussia said, with an odd expression on his face. “Generations to come will marvel at the efficiency of Prussian building.”

            “My name is Romano, jackass!”

            Romano and Prussia split up as soon as Prussia made it to his dingy hotel and Romano had had a word with the manager in Italian, just to make sure they’d charge him the prices usually reserved for overweight Americans with cameras around their necks. Prussia spent the night drinking at the hotel bar and complaining in old low German to anyone who would listen (and quite a few turned backs) about how his brother really had to stop sending him out on these kind of grunt missions, man, seriously. At midnight he drunkenly called Romano to complain some more now that the bar had closed, conveniently saving the Italian the trouble of sending one of his mafia goons to check up on him.

            “Shut up,” Romano groaned into the wrong end of his cell phone, rubbing his eyes. “I can’t understand a word you’re fucking saying and I doubt I’d care if I could.”

            Prussia drunkenly mumbled some more old German into the phone.

            “See you tomorrow, asshole,” Romano said and hung up, pleased with himself for acting so cool in the face of extreme Germanic provocation.

            Prussia showed up to work fifteen minutes late on the first day, clutching a giant “I love Berlin” mug filled to the brim with double-shots of espresso.

            “I already knew you’re a heathen Protestant, but this?  This?  You are clearly an apostate,” said Romano. “How the fuck can you drink your coffee like that?”

           “Awesomely,” said Prussia, and drained it in one go. To Romano’s dismay, he proceeded to diligently work until their lunch break at 12, only pausing once to buy some gelato and replenish his coffee supply.

         “Work expenses,” Prussia answered, and grinned. “I’m not gonna tell my brother if you won’t.”

         “I-“ Romano said, revving up for a rant, and then stopped abruptly. If Germany’s brother wanted to cheat Germany into paying Romano more money, than Romano certainly wasn’t going to be the one complaining. Romano settled for hoping that Prussia’s towering mound of gelato would fall onto his horrible tourist shirt and ruin it.  Unfortunately, the only thing that happened was that Prussia caught Romano looking and made him help carry the paperwork. As they walked to the next site that needed surveying, Romano tried to clandestinely read Prussia’s notes over his shoulder and discovered that Prussia wrote sentences the way most people signed checks. He’d thought he’d been reading upside down until he saw the doodle of the old guy with the crown.

        The next few days passed in an annoyingly similar fashion. Prussia showed up late to work every day, sporting steadily deepening dark circles under his eyes, but he never arrived quite late enough that Romano could dock his pay.  Then he’d spend the rest of each day doing random tests with a cone of gelato in one hand. No matter where they were or what they were doing, Prussia never failed to stop working at six on the dot.

         Romano would have been impressed if he hadn’t been so annoyed. He had a word with the owners of the bars near Prussia’s hotel, suggesting they might want to institute a ‘no annoying foreigners’ policy, but the only consequence was that Prussia took to wandering around Rome complaining.

         That night, Romano gritted his teeth and called Veneziano to ask why Germany hadn’t been able to make it.

         “I don’t know, ve,” Veneziano said. Romano could just picture his brother’s cute expression on his face as he scrunched up his nose and tried to think, and it made him want to punch something, but he didn’t want to call the carpenter again. “I don’t think he mentioned anything. But, Prussia is normally more of a party kind of guy, so... Why, is he not working enough, ve?” Veneziano asked, voice sliding straight from adorable confusion to cute concern.

         Romano launched into a tirade about all of Prussia’s bad habits and decidedly failed to mention their little bet. It wasn’t that important, he figured. The silver-haired idiot wasn’t doing anything important, and at this rate he would have tried every flavor of gelato in Rome before starting to dig the foundations.

        That Friday, Prussia accidentally managed to convince Romano to take him sightseeing as he was packing to head back to his hotel.

        “Hey, see you tomorrow, Romano.”

        “Tomorrow is Saturday, you idiot.”

        “Oh yeah... Well, then I’m going to go look at some of the tourist stuff you’ve got sitting around here. The awesome me deserves a vacation.”

        “Whatever-“ Romano began, gathering his leftover papers and shoving them into his satchel.

        “It’s been a while since the last time I went and visited a museum,” Prussia mused. “You steal one painting and people never let you forget. And I gave it back eventually anyways. Fucking France…anyways, see you on Monday, then.”

        And with that cheerful parting shot, Prussia sauntered off.

        Romano woke up at four in the morning shuddering from a nightmare that involved running through one of his museums and finding only destroyed paintings, and decided to accompany Prussia on his sightseeing tour. He called Prussia’s cell phone and informed him curtly that they would be meeting tomorrow at ten outside of the Ottaviano metro station.

       “And you’d better be fucking grateful, I don’t just give tours to just anyone, capiche?”

       “What the fuck?” Prussia muttered into his pillow before falling back asleep.

        The next morning, Prussia showed up in a pair of ratty jeans and an oversized hoodie emblazoned with the logo “Arm aber sexy” and a suggestive TV tower. His one concession to the fact that they were going to a museum was the giant camera dangling around his neck.

        “I don’t know who the fuck told you that you could dress like that, but if I did, I’d have them deported. I don’t think I can let myself be seen in public with you.” Romano had spent the rest of the night working himself into a fit of rage and was bags-under-his-eyes-levels of tired as a result. It didn’t help that Prussia had flagrantly overstepped the bounds of sort-of late into the new territory of mind-blowingly unpunctual.

        Prussia looked over at Romano’s aggressively matching outfit and crossed his arms. “This coming from the maniac who called me last night at four in the morning. For the record, my Berlin hoodie is am stylishsten.” Prussia posed like a store mannequin for the last sentence, causing Romano’s corneas to attempt immediate suicide.

        “NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!” snapped Romano. “And would you stop talking about Berlin? I hear enough shit about potato fucking bastard from my brother, I don’t need more from you, wash-out.”

        “I am Berlin,” Prussia pointed out gleefully. “I am the capital of parties and this here-“ Prussia pointed to his hoodie, “is my slogan.”

        “More like the worst city ever.” said Romano irritably. “I thought you were East Germany.”

        “New times, new jobs,” said Prussia, shrugging. “They made a new bundestaat after the wall came down, and my brother always needs a little more awesome in his life.”

        “Whatever, not like I give a fuck,” said Romano. “Goddamn tourists are all the same no matter where they come from. We’re going to the Vatican museums, keep your voice down and be respectful in the fucking church.”

       “I’m the most successful crusader state of all time,” said Prussia with a cackle. “I know how to be good in church.” And to Romano’s irritation, Prussia started off the trip by taking a picture of Romano standing there scowling and blinding him with the flash.

      They made it to the museums quickly, Prussia’s long strides easily keeping pace with Romano’s short, angry stomps. Once they got there, Romano grabbed Prussia’s arm and the two of them strolled through the crowd like it wasn’t even there.

       “Neat trick,” Prussia commented, looking around. “But ain’t this the old man’s place?”

       “Don’t refer to Vaticano as ‘the old man,’ fuckhead,” said Romano, crossing himself. “And you call yourself a crusader state.”

        “Not anymore, I don’t,” said Prussia. “And I don’t see you killing any heathens lately.”

        “This is the twenty-first century, dumbass.”

        “No shit,” said Prussia, and raised his camera to take a picture. “Where to first?”

        Romano glanced around and shrugged. “There’re the Greek and Roman statues, the Etruscan vases, some Egyptian stuff, some slabs from Sumeria-“

         “You into that kind of stuff?” Prussia asked skeptically. “Those guys were before your time, weren’t they?  I don’t remember them at all, I mean, except for dead and all laid out in places like this.”

         Romano gritted his teeth. “I would hardly expect a northern barbarian like you to appreciate Rome’s cultural legacy. My grandfather was THE collector of art.”

       “That wasn’t an answer,” Prussia pointed out, eyebrow still raised. “You wanna go see that shit?”

        “I’ve already seen everything here a thousand fucking times!” Romano shrieked angrily, quickly glancing around to make sure no priests were in the vicinity. “All I ever fucking hear about is Rome and all his great conquests, and all the pagan shit he brought over from other places. I live here! I have so many obelisks I use them as paperweights! You’re the one who wanted to go to the fucking museum!” 

            One the guards approached Romano nervously and asked, with utmost politeness, “Mr. Romano, is this guy bothering you? We can show him out if you’d like.”

          “Tch,” said Romano. “Unfortunately, this moron’s with me. Get back to your post.” Prussia stared at guard speculatively and took his picture.

            “Well, got your opinion on the old stuff.  Anyways, that shit’s boring. Isn’t there anything here from someone I might actually have known, back in the day?”

            Romano stared at him in disbelief. “Some of my stuff is in the paintings gallery.”

           “Let’s go look at that, then. You got any paintings of the awesome me?”

           To Romano’s irritation, Prussia proceeded to ask annoying questions about every single painting they came across, painted in Italy or not. About the Virgin Mary: “Is she holding an ice cream cone?” About Raphael’s paintings: “Why is that guy wearing green tights? Why is that guy yellow?” In the Pinakoteka: “Why does that lion have eyebrows?  That’s fucking hilarious.”  Romano’s responses were mostly curses and cannot properly be recorded here, lest your screen melt.  Prussia, luckily made of sterner stuff than any computer screen, simply laughed and made filthy comments about the paintings’ subjects instead.  He took pictures of everything, including various museum workers, and nearly fell off of a ledge trying to get a picture of a cardinal for his older brother. Romano mouthed a silent plea to the Virgin Mary for patience and then dragged Prussia inside to look at more pictures of saints.

        “I guess some stuff you never forget,” Prussia said while examining a picture of a saint having his intestines dragged out and wound around a windlass. “St. Erasmus, huh? I remember him. Did one of your guys draw this?”

        “No, it was one of France’s, but he drew it here. All the best art comes from Rome.”

         “Huh,” said Prussia. “Too bad, I could have used some stuff like this to liven up my churches back in the day. More interesting than people looking holy, or all the white walls Luther was so fond of.  Hey, check out this shit,” Prussia pointed to a painting of a saint being shot full of arrows. “That one’s pretty cool too. One of your guys draw this one?”

        “That’s St. Sebastian,” said Romano irritably. “That ‘shit’ is probably worth more than you make in a year, fuckhead. And yes, one of mine drew it.” Despite his best efforts, Romano was pleased; most tourists who came to Rome were only concerned with pawing through his grandfather’s things. Romano himself was usually just an afterthought.

       Prussia looked impressed. “Hardcore, man. Hardcore. Hey, are those guys being stretched on a rack?”

        Finally they got to the Sistine chapel. Prussia pointed to the ceiling and asked, “Is that a transvestite?”

        “Sh-Shut-up.” said Romano, elbowing Prussia hard. “Michaelangelo’s models were all men, ok?”  The guards echoed Romano’s expression and made loud clapping noises to make all the tourists quiet down.

       “Geez, are your elbows church steeples or something?” Prussia muttered, rubbing his side. He kept his talking to a minimum after that.  For a few minutes.

       “Well?” Romano demanded once they got out. “You just saw the world’s most famous chapel. “

       “It’s alright, I guess.” said Prussia slowly. Romano turned an angry red and sucked in his breath in preparation for a round of yelling now that they were out of the quiet zone. “I’ve spent way too much time in churches, although I guess if I had to go back, I’d rather go somewhere with an interesting ceiling. Might as well have something to stare at while you’re waiting for mass to end.”

        Prussia sounded a little bit sad, and Romano paused, unsure of what to say. Was Prussia remembering something from his crusading days? Were Germans actually capable of feeling?

       “I liked the roof covered in gold earlier better,” Prussia said in the pause. “I would totally sack that shit if we were back in the 1300s!  And check out those landscapes.”

       “Don’t say stuff like that!” said Romano, blushing, indecision gone. “Il Vaticano is a holy place, you perverted northern bastard!”

            “That never stopped him from sending me to beat people up…. Ah, the good old days.” said Prussia, and sighed wistfully. Romano stared at him in disbelief. “Don’t get your highways in a twist, the awesome me has retired from sacking things. Outside of WoW, anyways.  And maybe tables during Oktoberfest.”

            “Ugh.” said Romano, clapping his hand to his forehead in an attempt to forcefully evacuate his knowledge of the previous sentence. “I cannot believe you just said that.”

         Sunday Prussia went to the Austrian embassy, snuck in a back door that had been left open for him, made his way to an empty room on the third floor, plugged in his laptop and started unloading photos from his camera. Austria had quietly made it known among the embassy workers that they were not to enter this room, and that regardless of what actually happened in the room, they hadn’t seen or heard anything.

            Prussia spent the day comparing photos from his camera with grainy mug shots of various Italian Mafioso suspects. Some of the pictures were really vacation pictures- Prussia had to take some of those to avoid being suspicious, after all, and he filed them neatly under “The Awesome Me and Italia (Small and Angry)” and completely forgot about them. It was annoying that the awesome him had to sneak around the Italies, of all nations, but at least he was getting a vacation out of it. It would be so easy to just knock them on their asses, he thought longingly as he looked over the pictures. But Germany was very sensitive about matters pertaining to his ‘liebes schneckchen,’ so Prussia was going to need definite proof that the Italy brothers were involved with the mafia directly before accusing them. 

            The fact that Romano seemed to know all of the security guards at all of the museums was probably a good start.

            While Prussia didn’t disapprove of the mafia on principle, he didn’t want his little brother mixed up in it. Germany was just so, so easy to manipulate-he still hadn’t realized that Prussia’s “important building restoration” money was going straight to beer.  So Prussia had called in a favor with Austria to get this room for a few weeks, with the all-important no questions asked condition. Austria probably thought he was doing something illegal, but that was fine with Prussia. He worked slowly and carefully, humming the opening to the Ring Cycle as he went. Before he left, he posted his normal vacation pictures to his blog and to facebook,  tagging Romano as tiny angry Italy.  Hopefully that would keep Romano annoyed enough to stop him from asking about Prussia’s afternoon.

          The next day, Prussia showed up to their meeting with plans on coffee-ring and grease stained paper.

          “Hey, small angry Italy, if you’re going to follow me around anyways, could you look over these plans?  I mean, I already know they’re awesome, but you know, you might as well be doing something useful.  Might keep you from stealing my gelato.”

         “My. Name. Is. Romano.”

          “Right, sure. Romano, could you check those?”

          “I can’t fucking read this!” said Romano, unfolding the plan. “And how come you can draw a straight line when you’re making inane diagrams, but not when you’re writing?”

          “My writing is just too awesome for you to handle,” Prussia informed him smugly. “Those are clearly construction plans.”

          “Really?” said Romano skeptically. “What’s this bit here say?”

          After trying to decipher it for five minutes Prussia was forced to concede that it was a gelato smudge.

           That week, the machinery arrived and they began digging three days ahead of schedule.

          On Saturday the two nations went sightseeing again, this time to some of Romano’s own museums. Prussia had originally planned to go to the museum briefly and then duck out and snoop around, but Romano bragged about his paintings so enthusiastically that they ended up staying past closing time. Prussia was interested to note that once Romano whispered in the ears of one of the docents, the museum mysteriously decided to extend its hours, just for the two of them.

           Prussia passed his Sunday like the last one, sorting through pictures. He was getting better at using his zoom to catch little incriminating things, like men in nice black suits who did a lot of lounging in windows. “It’s a pretty impressive operation-“ Prussia said out loud to no one in particular, “But those are some lame-ass uniforms.”

            The third week, they found the ruined remains of an old temple in the middle of their proposed subway path.

            “Geez, your old man really didn’t know how to clean up his stuff, did he?” Prussia said, staring down at the columns and the archaeologists already queuing  to take samples and write papers.

            “You jealous?” Romano asked, leaning against the wall and trying to look disaffected. Instead he looked uncomfortable. “I can’t even dig up a subway without finding priceless artifacts my grandfather left me.” Fucking Grandpa Rome, he added mentally. Even after you’re dead, you keep leaving me all this crap. It’s like having a target painted on my back.

            “Not really,” said Prussia absently, sliding some plans out of his back pocket. “The awesome me prefers members of my own family, like Germania-I was never that into Rome.  And besides, I’ve had just about enough of ruins.”

            Romano leaned too far and slid down the wall. “Bullshit!” he said. Prussia snickered.  Romano angrily got back up and started dusting off his jeans. “That’s fucking ridiculous. Everyone in Europe loves my fucking grandfather. All you assholes with your eagles and shit- my family did that first. My fucking grandfather owned all of you.”

          “Not Germania,” returned Prussia, smirking. “He was the only one your grandfather couldn’t beat. Now that was a real nation.” 

           Romano started to protest, realized that he didn’t have anything good to say about Rome, fell silent, and then angrily added, “Well, this better not delay the subway.” He didn’t mention the Bernini.

         “Of course not!” said Prussia smugly. “A Prussian is always prepared.”

        “What, like a Jesuit?” Romano asked caustically.

          “Yeah, but with better uniforms and less Inquisition.” said Prussia, producing a crumpled square of paper from his back pocket. “Behold, a back-up plan, straight from Wessi’s collection.”

         “Wait, how does a moron like you know the motto of the Jesuits?” Romano asked, waving away the back-up plan.

         “Former Catholic Order, hello?“ said Prussia. “The Jesuit Order is my cousin. See him every year at the Annual Catholic Reunion Picnic. Big brother Templar makes me go, even though I retired from that whole Catholic thing a while back.“

          “One doesn’t retire from being Catholic!” Romano informed him. “One becomes an apostate! And what kind of shit is this about the Templars, France killed them all like 500 years ago.”

         “Naw, they just went into hiding,” said Prussia. “That’s why I only see him once a year.”

        Romano gave Prussia a deeply skeptical look. Prussia grinned. “Come by the picnic sometime and I’ll introduce you. But back to Wessi’s plans.”

        The next day, Prussia proceeded to horrify Romano by eating his lunch sprawled across one of the thousand-year-old pillars.

        “Hey, if it’s lasted this long, it’ll last a little longer,” said Prussia, biting into his ciabatta.

        “That’s not the point, asshole!” said Romano angrily. “Don’t just go marching over my grandfather’s things!”

         “S’not like he’s here to stop me,” Prussia said, and grinned. Romano was clambering over the pillar with a murderous gleam in his eye. “You know, you’re standing on it now too-“

        Romano kicked him in the side. Unfortunately, that only made Prussia laugh, so Romano went and got a large brick and forcefully evicted Prussia from his seat. It might have been more impressive if Prussia hadn’t been cackling the whole time. To Romano’s horror, Prussia was so impressed with Romano’s brick-to-the-back-of-the-skull technique that he took to eating all of his lunches on important historical monuments, just to goad him. Romano clenched his fists and imagined Prussia nice and quiet at the bottom of the Tiber, feet encased in a neat block of cement.

            That Saturday, they had a picnic on the Palatine. “Julius Ceasar was assassinated over there.” Romano informed Prussia. “This is an important place.” He felt like he’d been saying that a lot in the past few days, but somehow Prussia didn’t seem to be getting it.

            “Nice hills.” commented Prussia, ignoring him. He’d wanted to come to the Palantine because it was out in the open, and ever since the previous week Prussia had had the unsettling feeling that he was being watched.

            “What- don’t just say stuff like that, you idiot!”  Romano blushed, arms curling around his sides protectively.

            Prussia looked over at the ruins and saw, with a sinking feeling, the tip of a jacket disappearing just a little too slowly into the shadows.

            “Let’s take a picture together-“ he said to Romano, and pulled out his camera. The picture he got failed to capture any evidence of the tail Prussia was now sure he had, but it caught Romano by surprise, and he couldn’t get his scowl into place before the shutter clicked. Afterwards Romano hit Prussia over the head for having the camera flash go off in his eyes, but Prussia kept the picture. If nothing else, he figured, Spain would pay him for it; sadly, it was probably the closest thing anyone had to a picture of Romano laughing.

            Prussia spent his Sunday in the embassy, and Romano scrupulously went to church-not even cursing once. Romano would have been content to keep ignoring Prussia (or pretending he was ignoring Prussia), but on Monday something unusual happened. As the tunnel boring machines buzzed in the background, Romano caught Prussia gazing out at the pillars with a strange frown on his face.

            “Pretty amazing, aren’t they?” Romano said, waving carelessly as if priceless artifacts were an everyday occurrence for him, which in all fairness, they were.

           “Nah.” said Prussia, and looked a little contemptuous. “I don’t get why everyone thinks that these are so great.” Prussia said. “They’re just so… dead. Remind me of a battlefield, a few weeks later.  Well, without the smell and stuff, but, you know.” He wrinkled his nose. “Almost as bad.“ Romano would have yelled at him, but Prussia winked at him and hopped the border of the dig site and took off towards the pillars, forcing Romano to run after him.

          “What are you doing-“ Romano yelled angrily as Prussia started to clamber up the side of a two thousand year old pillar. “GET DOWN FROM THERE!”

           Prussia just looked back at him and laughed. Romano climbed up after him, but Prussia ran lightly along its ridged surface and onto some nearby scaffolding with a grin and a “Catch me if you can!”  Suddenly, Prussia was not only defacing a column with his ugly shoes, but was cheerfully interrupting Roman builders as they tried, admittedly not that enthusiastically, to begin construction of a new station.

         “CATCH YOU? I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!” yelled Romano, hands clenched into fists, and started to make his way up after Prussia. Prussia just snickered and sped up, taunting Romano all the while.

        “C’mon, fatass!  Not gonna be able to punch a snail with that speed!”

         Romano cursed every one of Prussia’s ancestors, who must have been monkeys, because that was the only explanation for ease with which Prussia scaled to the top of the scaffolding. Romano, who exemplified more of his illustrious ancestor’s love for sitting around and eating languorously than his fondness for running around and beating up his neighbors, was rapidly left behind and increasingly out of breath. By the time he got to the top he was too tired to swat away Prussia’s hand when the tall German reached down and pulled him up.  They sat there, one panting and the other still giggling madly, and stared down at the engineers and historians below. 

        “See, this is cooler.” said Prussia and stood up to gesture out at the sprawling city around them, decked out in oranges and yellows and brilliant whites. “It’s alive, people are doing stuff.  Almost as awesome and busy as Berlin!” Prussia concluded, grinning like he was giving out some great accolade.

        Romano blushed, felt himself blush, tried to splutter something angry, lost his balance and almost fell off the scaffolding. He had to grab Prussia’s elbow to steady himself, and when Prussia glanced at him in confusion, Romano elbowed him. He was still too out of breath to speak, but he flipped Prussia off before he bent in two, resting his hands on his knees. His head was pounding and Prussia was ignoring him- as soon as he could talk again, Romano was going to make the bastard pay.

          As he stared at the city and tried to recover, he felt a strange fondness come over him. It really was pretty cool, and for once, he looked around and almost saw himself in the winding alleyways and picturesque villas, not just the bones of his grandfather.  It was unsettling, but somehow it made Romano feel a bit fuller, or taller, at least a little less like Rome’s remnant and a little more like a nation in his own right.  Here, next to the secondary-potato-idiot and above his own glorious city, no one could look down on him.

            Prussia grinned and stuck his hands in the pockets of his baggy jeans. There were many things that Prussia missed on a regular basis: being his own nation, the eighteenth century, Frederick the Great (oh, how he missed Fritz. It ached worst in January, around Frederick’s birthday), having his own army. Despite that, Prussia didn’t dwell on the past all that often.  Just every now and then, drunk on a dozen too many beers and coming home to an empty house when Germany was away being responsible, but that was excusable.  It was all right to remind people how awesome he was, since for some reason they never seemed to appreciate him properly (always surprised when he won, that wasn’t luck that was pure AWESOME!), but bragging about things you hadn’t even made or done yourself just seemed silly. Prussia straightened out of his obnoxious slouch unconsciously, like he always did when he thought of his days as a soldier.  Maybe it was different for people who’d been lucky enough to inherit something from their old man, but Germania had left Prussia with only a sharp sword and whetstone of ambition.

            The wind caught Prussia’s short hair and blew it back from his face; Romano glanced up at him ready to start yelling, and his angry thoughts hit a brief hitch. Standing soldier straight and framed by the sun, Prussia didn’t look like a wash-out. Romano swallowed. There was a long, silent pause, and then Prussia ruined the moment by loudly declaring his desire for a beer. His slouch returned, and the sun’s glare no longer hid the holes in his jeans or obnoxious slogan on his hoodie.

            “You idiot!” said Romano, and stood up and shoved him.

            “Are you psychotic?” Prussia asked, entirely failing to hide his laughter. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

            “You fuckhead, you climbed on one of my grandfather’s pillars-”

            “Trust me, you’ll know when I’ve decided to climb your pillars-“ said Prussia, waggling an eyebrow, and ducked. Romano’s strike went wide.

             “Ha-ha, try again. “ sing-songed Prussia.

            “You are so immature-“ said Romano, and stuck his hands in his pockets and scowled.

            “Yeah, yeah, you wish you had as much fun as me.” said Prussia. He pointed out into the panorama. “Maybe you should consider rebuilding that thing, get some new games started, then maybe you might actually have some fun.”

            Romano looked out where Prussia was pointing and snickered. “That’s a castle, moron. The Coliseum is on the other side.”

           Prussia squinted at the building like he was hoping that if he concentrated hard enough, it would change its mind and turn into the Coliseum. “… huh. Normally the awesome me would never make a mistake like that, but this city is fucking confusing.”

           “No, you’re just an idiot. Fucking America knows what the coliseum looks like. Probably.  We fucking walked past it twice when we were going over the outlines! And the Castel Sant’Angelo too!”

           “Oh yeah.” said Prussia unapologetically. “And I said that it didn’t look like those walls would stand up to a good battering ram, and you got all mad, and you made me go inside.  Yeah.  Ok.”

            “You are a goddamn philistine.” Romano informed him, and then grudgingly stood and jerked Prussia’s arm in a completely different direction. “Although you’ll probably forget as soon as I’ve shown you, that’s the Coliseum. See, it’s right next to the Palentine, where we had our picn- business lunch.” Romano winced, feeling vaguely that he shouldn’t be admitting to spending so much time in the company of Germans.  He glared at a couple landmarks in an effort to stop himself from blushing yet again.

            That day, instead of his usual route home, Romano went straight through the heart of the city, past all of his gaudiest presents from Grandpa Rome. He was half surprised by how long it had been since he’d walked these streets; Romano’s normal routine avoided any places thronged with tourists, i.e. most of central Rome.  It was late and dark, but there were still a few camera-wielding sightseers out enjoying the warm night. Romano felt a twinge of irritation when he saw them, but it was so weak he didn’t even bother to scam them into buying something. As he walked by them, one of them exclaimed how beautiful Rome was and to Romano’s surprise, he found that he couldn’t quite look down on her for it. Rome was beautiful, and encircled by the twilight-soft splendor of his buildings, Romano himself felt beautiful. He smiled quietly to himself, and a girl waiting at the bus station dropped her bag. For the rest of her life she would swear that she’d seen an angel walk by, straight out of a Botticelli painting. (It helped that Romano had been forced into modeling for half of them and that Veneziano had been in most of the rest.)

            Romano went home, made himself some pasta, and fell asleep halfway through his prayers.

            The rest of the month passed in endless excavations, and they plowed through two more of Germany’s back up plans as they bumped into an ancient bath and yet another temple.  Prussia rolled his eyes and went back to his drafting table, vowing to bulldoze the next ruin and rubbing the bruises he got for that statement. 

            That Friday was the first time Prussia actually invited Romano to anything.

             “Hey, I’m going to the bar, wanna come with?” He asked, grabbing his jacket and tossing it over his shoulder, where it was clearly going to wrinkle horribly.  Romano recoiled, both from the mistreatment of an innocent piece of clothing and from the offer.  He glowered.  So Prussia had finally gotten the whole “Rome is beautiful, come conquer it” thing through his thick skull?  “Why would I want to go out with you?” he asked instinctively, barriers up and covered with spikes for good measure.

             “Booze?” said Prussia, as if it were obvious. “And, while drinking alone is totally awesome, it’s even better if you have someone with you to appreciate how awesome it is.”

            “And what makes you think I don’t have any friends to drink with, huh?”  Romano retorted, gritting his teeth to keep allegations of getting-people-drunk and just-in-it-for-my-body from spilling out.  Technically, Prussia hadn’t done anything in either of those directions, yet, but Romano had been through this before with Spain and France and most of Europe, for that matter. He knew what to expect. Centuries of experience had taught him that once people started inviting him out to places, it was only a matter of time before they started sizing him up to be their trophy wife. In France’s case, it was more a matter of seconds. If he had been somewhere else he would have excused himself immediately, but fuck if he was going to run from Prussia in his own city. Prussia could very well hit on him; Romano would refuse so scathingly that Prussia would never recover.

             “Your loss.” said Prussia carelessly, oblivious to Romano’s angry inner monologue. “See you Monday,” he added with a shrug before heading towards the elevator. Romano gaped and floundered.  What? That wasn’t how it worked.

            “Ok, fine, just this once, loser,” he heard himself say, and clacked his mouth shut. Shit, and Prussia had probably just been playing hard to get, or some crap like that.  Romano wheeled himself around, and grabbed his own jacket and satchel, ignoring Prussia’s declamations on how he was not a loser and was in fact, am kuhlsten.

            Prussia’s unerring ability to find shady areas led them to what was possibly the seediest bar in all of Rome. On their way inside Romano had to remind five different people that he definitely did not know them and had never employed them for any illegal activities. Fortunately Prussia was mostly too distracted by the prospect of beer to really notice, although he did give Romano a weird look when the waiter addressed him as “Boss,” and when Romano called one of the doormen “Muffin.”

             Prussia proceeded to loudly demand beer, and to laugh at Romano’s request for the establishment’s best wine.  Romano glared at Prussia, and drained his first glass in a huff.  It was shitty anyways, cheap and sour, though it couldn’t have been as horrible as that yeast-barley concoction.  Prussia slouched happily into his seat and started on an apparently hilarious story about battlefield hospitals.  Romano glared at the waiter until he was brought something approaching a decent vintage, and raised an eyebrow at the story.  “I remember those hospitals,” he said scathingly.  “I was the one being put in them by random wanna-be emperors and shit.  Remember?”

            “Oh yeah,” Prussia said, gesturing with his beer bottle.  “Well, yeah, they did suck for the patients.  I remember this one time I got put in one, I think I’d been hacked up a bit, but you should have seen the other guy, you know, and the doctor got out the leeches, and-“  
 Prussia made a horrific hand gesture and Romano snorted into his wineglass. After Prussia finished his story about battlefield hospitals, he segued into a series of complaints about  how lame Germany was; Romano clinked glasses with him in a gesture of complete agreement before he could stop himself.

            He scowled at Prussia, waiting for the other nation to smile at him, to make some kind of horrible romantic gesture, but Prussia just ordered another drink in truly terrible Italian.

            “Motherfucker, you are mangling my language.”

            “It’s pre-mangled. That shit is weird-“ Romano punched him in the arm.

            “Italian is the world’s most beautiful language, although I’m not surprised that a dumb fuck like you can’t appreciate it.”

            “I am as cultured as all fuck.” Prussia shot back. “I bet Berlin is way more multi-kulti than Rome.”

“Yeah, and Germany has a sense of humor. Let’s see some Italian then.”

            Prussia’s Italian was slightly less horrible than Romano had expected; he was actually able to cease snickering after five minutes. Prussia scowled and challenged Romano to speak German better; five drinks later they were still arguing about which language was harder.

            Romano kept waiting, on edge despite the blurriness of too much inferior wine, but Prussia never edged his chair over, never broke into the clichéd compliments about spires and domes, hint hint, wink wink.  Instead Prussia segued into more stories, generally involving blood and his own awesome—which were somehow still inexplicably amusing. It helped that both of them were pretty drunk- Prussia kept sliding off the barstool and making Romano choke on his drink as he tried not laugh.

             At some point both of them started to complain about Germany again and Prussia clinked glasses with Romano and threw an arm around his shoulders. Romano cringed, but Prussia just kept laughing, chugging more beer through his guffaws.  Romano waited, but the arm stayed where it was, neither traveling in any bad directions nor sliding back to his side where it belonged.

           “I’m going home,” Romano said abruptly.  “It’s, it’s late.”  He looked at his watch and noticed how late it really was.  They’d spent hours blabbering and sniping at each other.  Prussia lifted his arm up, saluted with his beer and said, “Ok, see you Monday.  Or are you showing off again for me any time this weekend?”

           “What?”  Romano spluttered. Shit, shit, shit.

            “You mentioned something about some church?  Peter in chains or something?”  Prussia interrupted Romano’s burgeoning panic attack with the ease of the oblivious.

            “Oh, oh that?” Romano answered, blinking.  “Well, if you can’t bother to read the fucking guidebook, I guess I’ll have to take you,” he answered on instinct.

             “Guidebooks are for tourists,” said Prussia. “And don’t lie, you love showing off.”

            Romano rolled his eyes. “You _are_ a fucking tourist.” Prussia just grinned and ordered another beer. Romano awkwardly stood around for a bit, and then slunk towards the door when he realized Prussia wasn’t going to offer to walk him home.  It was nice, going home alone.  He didn’t have to go at a tourist’s pace, or point out things he‘d seen a thousand times.  Totally better than being followed around by annoying Germans.  Definitely.

            Romano wandered up and down his streets, trying to make sense of things through the wine.  There was the alcohol, the talking, the invitations, but Prussia didn’t seem to want to take the final step of hitting on him, which was strange and almost insulting.  Romano walked through his kitchen and had to go back and splash some cold water on his face when he realized he wouldn’t mind doing this whole hanging-out-without-getting-hit-on thing with Prussia again, if at a better bar. Obviously he was drunk if he was considering spending time with Prussia voluntarily.

          Romano woke up early the next morning and spent a few grouchy hours hanging around the house, trying on different outfits and stalling going over to meet Prussia. After Veneziano caught him checking his watch for a fifth time, Romano hurriedly left before Feliciano could start to ask awkward questions. He ended up outside Prussia’s hotel half an hour before they were scheduled to meet and ended up pacing angrily outside. He fidgeted for a few minutes, feeling slightly guilty for asking the owner to raise Prussia’s bill on the first night.

          But Prussia’s brother had plenty of money anyways, thought Romano, and besides, Prussia deserved it for making Romano wait so long. Romano was important, damn it. There were tourists wandering around with full pockets and monuments that needed excavating and churches without a flock, but Romano was stuck waiting outside of Prussia’s stupid hotel. Fuck that shit. Romano grabbed a rock and tossed it through Prussia’s window.

          “Wake up, you lazy ass!” he yelled. There was a pause and then Prussia stuck his head out, looking confused.

          “The hell is your problem?” Prussia asked, and yelped when he cut his fingers on the broken glass. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and sucked on them, so that his next sentence came out garbled. “I’m not paying for that, asshole.”

        “Just get out here.” said Romano and stooped to get another rock. Prussia hastily stuck his head back in. Romano smiled in satisfaction. A little while later Prussia wandered out aggressively munching on a piece of biscotti and looking distinctly displeased, dots of blood still smeared on his fingers. 

          “I know it’s hard to restrain yourself when you get an opportunity to see the awesome me,” Prussia said, “but what the hell was that?”  With his hair sticking up in all directions and his aggrieved expression, he looked a bit like an angry, ancient rooster. Romano snickered. “I got tired of waiting.”

          “You could have called!” said Prussia. “Oh, sorry, was your shitty low-quality Italian cell phone not working?”

         “Fuck you!” said Romano. “Sorry, was a rock too much for the great Prussia to handle? Next time I’ll toss some German bread through the window, that’d work just as well.” They bickered all the way to the metro, insults about lasagne and potatoes, BMWs and Vespas flying.

         Once they got to St. Peter’s, Romano was a little mollified by Prussia’s enthusiasm for the church statues, although he did wish that Prussia had phrased it other than “Sweet, a motherfucking skeleton!” You weren’t supposed to swear in church, goddammit. Even Romano did his best, though he usually ended up having to add a couple of Rosaries to his prayers for all the times he messed up. 

         Prussia took pictures of the skeleton, he took pictures with the skeleton, he took pictures of the chains, and he almost took pictures of himself with the chains, before Romano threatened to take him out back and shoot him. Romano thought that Prussia gave him a contemplative look for a moment before doubling over in laughter, but he wasn’t sure.  Romano glared at him for being crass (again) in a holy space, but then a priest came up and asked them to leave.  Romano found a new object to focus his ire on, and ended up muttering “Probably the most life this place has gotten in centuries” as they pushed their way out into the piazza.  Prussia grinned blindingly at him, and slung an arm over his shoulder.  “Thanks man, at least someone understands my awesome!” he announced, punching the air before heading to the gelato stand outside the church. 

        Romano could feel his face heating up as he realized that yes, fuck, he had defended a potato-bastard against one of his own, against one of his priests, what the fuck was this shit?  Romano stared out at the square, thinking. This, this wasn’t normal.  He hated the brash, loud tourists who swamped his streets and polluted his sacred spaces with their ignorant commentary and their camera flashes.  He could remember this square being built, those grandparents being born.  He liked that, liked his people, liked the slow, quiet sprawl of his plazas in the afternoon.  Yet here he was, letting himself get pulled along in the wake of a German louder and more obnoxious than any tourist he’d ever had the satisfaction of handing over to the police.  And he was defending the bastard.

       Romano's gaze wandered over to where Prussia was standing in line, his hair shockingly white against the surrounding oranges and browns. That asshole, thought Romano. Who did he think he was, coming here and making Romano take him all over the city, forcing Romano to go to places he hadn’t visited in ages? It wasn’t fair. Romano was just fine by himself, he didn’t need northern bastards showing up and taking up his time and making fools of themselves in entertaining ways. Wait. Something was wrong with that last sentence. Romano had a sudden desire to knock his head against a wall, which was quickly replaced by a desire to knock Prussia’s head against a wall. Or some cobblestones—Romano wasn’t picky.

        Suddenly, Prussia was back, crowing about discounts for awesome and Romano’s smile and shoving a cone into Romano’s hands.  Romano looked at Prussia’s smirk, thought, ‘What smile?’ and realized to his horror that his cheeks were bunched up around his mouth wrong for a frown.  He scrunched his lips into a scowl retroactively, and dragged Prussia off before someone noticed. 

        They ambled their way through the rest of the day, visiting villas and bridges and churches, Romano always on the edge of ditching Prussia with his standard “I have important things to do, so go away” excuse, but never quite pushing the words from his brain to his tongue.  It didn’t help that quite often his paranoid glances at reflective surfaces reflected back smiles or grins. He shook his head each time, made sure to yell louder, and hurried on. At the end of the day they separated after more alcohol at a tiny restaurant off of the Appian way, and Romano realized to his horror that there actually had been things he should have been doing, that he hadn’t done any of them, and worst of all, that he didn’t regret it one bit. 

        The next few weeks fell into a comfortable routine. The subway continued to progress, (too quickly, Romano’s traitor thoughts hinted, and were swiftly silenced), metal supports and strangely comfortable seats coming in from who-knows-where and getting assembled even before excavations were complete. Romano would have suspected shady goings-on if he hadn’t been so well acquainted with all the shady operations in this part of the world.

          It became habit for Romano and Prussia to spend their Fridays and Saturdays together wandering around the city. Romano told himself that he was keeping Prussia out of trouble and Prussia told himself that he was doing research.  Prussia continued to spend his Sundays alone. He claimed that he needed the time to get his accounts settled. Romano dismissed it as a German eccentricity, but Prussia became so paranoid that he injured himself twice in the process of trying to get to the Austrian embassy unnoticed. Goddamn Vespas, appearing out of nowhere unexpectedly.

           Romano continued to protest every step in the building process, just because he could, but Prussia didn’t mind. He’d heard enough threats over the years to know when someone was being serious and when they weren’t, and at this point he was pretty sure that if Romano were seriously displeased with him, guns and concrete would rapidly become involved. Romano’s sputtering was just funny background noise, like Germany’s increasingly desperate requests for Prussia to answer his phone. The one time that Romano seriously brought up the likelihood that more inconvenient ruins would pop up inevitably and delay things yet again, Prussia just poked at the schedule above his head.  “You don’t get awesome by waiting around for mistakes to happen,” he said, grinning distractedly, “You plan for awesome, and then punch the problems until they go away! Well, metaphorically, you know…” He petered off as he scribbled across the plans, probably adding in another backup plan, or maybe just doodling the inappropriate picture he’d seen in the bar the night before. 

           Romano was learning far more about Prussia than he’d ever expected, wanted or needed to, everything from history (wildly exaggerated, of course, but not as much as Romano had expected) to personal exploits (probably also wildly exaggerated, but Romano couldn’t double check those online as easily as he could troop movements-not that he would) to likes and dislikes.  Then Prussia had turned his camera at a reliquary, had looked at Romano, had grinned and stopped, and Romano realized to his horror that Prussia was getting to know him too.  Romano was close to tearing his…well, someone’s hair out, when one morning Romano came into the office and found Prussia slouched against a wall, plans in one hand and briefcase in another.  Romano was surprised to see Prussia in the office before him, even though he’d adapted quite well to the be-as-late-as-possible status quo.  Then he realized that the briefcase was full to bursting again.

         “The hell is that?” Romano asked irritably, his stomach lurching unpleasantly.

          Prussia announced that the initial digging was complete, and that his brother had called him back to Berlin. “Listen,” he said, arm waving vaguely with the plans, “I know you’re not me, but your people have been doing ok so far.  If you run into any more problems, just call and the awesome me will fix them.  But you shouldn’t—just follow these and you should be done pretty much on time.  Good luck!” He tossed Romano the plans, making Romano fumble to catch them. Romano gaped and had a sudden urge to kick Prussia’s kitschy souvenir-filled suitcase. So, naturally he did just that, but Prussia’s suitcase was hard and Romano ended up dancing back and forth on one foot, yelling.

          “Listen, you bastard, I’m paying you and your stupid brother to come and make this fucking metro for me, you can’t just skip out of it!”

           “Actually,” Prussia said, pulling out some more papers with an amused look, “I was only supposed to be here until the plans were solidified.  See, here, on the contract?  I’ve just been hanging around for a bit longer to make sure none of your granddad’s old sheds wouldn’t pop up and mess things up again.”  Prussia smirked, and Romano interrupted him before he could make yet another dumb joke about columns and Grandpa Rome’s penis size.  There were some things Romano had never wanted to think about, and hadn’t, until Prussia had come along.

          “But, but…” Romano sputtered, vaguely remembering pushing the contract in a see-as-little-of-the-potato-bastard-as-possible direction.  He tried to corral his arguments, and realized that he couldn’t really say anything without insulting his own engineers and builders, or even worse, admitting that he’d had more fun in the last couple of months than he’d had since the 2006 World Cup.  Since he hadn’t actually admitted the latter to himself yet, he shut his mouth with a snap and muttered, “You’re not getting any of the paintings, especially if you’re not around to see the final excavation.”

          “I didn’t know you’d miss me,--“  Prussia started gleefully.

          “That’s not what I meant, you idiot!”

          “But,” Prussia barreled on, “If you want to visit me in Berlin, just, you know, come on over.  I’ll show you real bars and shit, not these places where you have to spend a fuck ton just to walk in.  Anyways, it’s been fun, so Tchuss!”  He heaved his suitcase, saluted casually, and traipsed towards the Termini station.  Romano spent a few seconds gaping, and then kicked a wall. Ow. He grimaced—why hadn’t he learned to take out his anger on people, not on walls.  As if he’d ever visit the potato-bastard’s capitol.  He was totally better off without any arrogant Northerners, claiming they knew better than the people who’d invented concrete.  He turned to yell a parting curse after Prussia, but he was already gone, the silver of his hair swallowed in the crowd.

 

           Epilogue:

           After the train, after the greetings and complaints, after the text from Romano saying that he hoped Prussia had dropped dead and also he had forgotten his socks, Prussia sat in the darkness of his basement and contemplated his computer. He had compiled enough evidence to prove, even by Germany’s finicky standards, that Romano was affiliated with the mafia. The problem would be extending that to Feliciano. Prussia wasn’t sure to what extent Germany’s denial penetrated, but he wasn’t going to present his case until he was sure it was airtight. And he could do it. He was sure of it. He was the awesome Prussia and this was the challenge he had set himself.

            He clicked on a file and set to work.

**Author's Note:**

> All places mentioned are real places in Rome. The construction is also a thing, and if it isn't, it should be. Romano subways are hella crowded.


End file.
